Drive bay cover mod

[ContraptionMaker]

"Drive bay cover mod"

This project actually started as a need to switch from my speakers to my headphones and back with out unplugging anything....
Since this only required a switch and a headphone jack, I had a lot of room left on the drive bay cover, so I decided to add a couple of more switches. One will control a fan cover light from a previous mod and the other for a new set of cold cathode florescence tubes for the inside. Guess what? Still more room! As I looked at my NiMH battery charger and cell phone sitting on my desk charging and taking up space I suddenly had a vision. I saw my cell phone charging from a port on my computer! Both of these have car chargers. The PSU puts out 12v, why not use that to power the car chargers? Both the battery charger and phone use those bulky outlet hogging transformers and both are just being slid from one place to the other on my desk. With this one little mod I can eliminate the transformers (and open a couple of outlets) and possibly some of the clutter on my desk..

Since finishing this project I am quite happy with the results and thought you might use this as a basis to build your own control panel. Depending on your needs and expertise you can add a lot of controls to a single bay cover. Just look around at some of the commercial versions and you will see what I mean. Everything from card readers to USB ports and everything in-between can be found in a drive bay. Let your imagination run wild and add some stuff to your computer.
"Part 1: Gathering parts & Making it "Mod"ular"

Gathering Parts

The fist step is collecting everything you need. Of course after you do this you will, according to Murphy, need something else as you progress so be ready to run back to the parts store in the middle of your build.
Here are the parts I started with:
Set of cold cathode florescent tubes
Molex connector
1/8 stereo jacks (2)
1/8 stereo plugs (4)
SPST Mini switch (2)
DPDT Mini switch
12v Power jack
12v Power plugs (2)
Cell phone car charger
NiHm car charger cord
and of course the bay cover.
Your parts list might be different!!!

Now let's not forget our tools list:
Wire
Solder
Soldering iron
Small side cutters
Small needle nose pliers
Exato knife
Mini drills
Jewelers files
Epoxy
Clamps
Saw (I used my scroll saw and a broken blade from same saw)

Make it "MOD"ular!

My first thoughts were to hard wire all this in. After giving this some thought I changed my mind and decided to make the whole thing modular. That way I could move it from case to case. This brought up my next problem, how do I mount all of this to the back of this bay cover? I needed a box to hold more, what else, jacks!

I just happen to have some old CD-ROM’s laying around so I did what anyone would do and tore it apart. Sorry about the pics they were taken after I started mounting stuff in but it should give you an idea of where this part came from.
Removed from case…

After cutting the back end off and trimming to height…

This would actually work out better than I thought.
The plastic was easy to work yet turned out to be very strong. The epoxy stuck well and with a little cutting on the scroll saw it fit perfectly! Not only that but there was a spot to put a molex connector that seemed to be made for just that part.

PERFECT FIT!

The next step was to install two fan connectors to use as a place to plug in the lights and two stereo jacks for the speaker input and output. I used a small drill and jewelers files to cut the holes for the fan connectors and secured them with 5 minute epoxy.

Since I was removing the lighter plugs that contained the fuse for the charging circuits I installed a fuse holder for the two amp fuse that the adapters originally used.

The finished box.

Next we will design and build the front panel.
"Part 2: Building the front panel"

After finishing up the box the next step was to design the panel front. My drive cover was in three parts and I wanted the switches to be labeled. This is what it looked like before any modification.

This is what it looked like taken apart.

I used Paint Shop Pro to do the layout for the switches and labels, then took the jpg file to Office Depot, and had it printed as a transparency.

And this is what it looks like laying on the aluminum plate.

It was then cut to fit and sandwiched between the Plexiglas and the aluminum sheet.

With everything back together I drilled the holes for the switches and jacks.

After test fitting the switches I discovered that to get the 12v jack and headphone jack to fit I would have to modify the panel a little more. The switch holes were drilled to allow the shank to screw right into the panel. This would not work for the jacks though because the shank was too short to pass through to the front. I made the following mods to make everything fit.

This is the power jack hole from behind.

And here is the panel with switches and jacks installed.

Well that takes care of all the prep work it’s time to get this thing wired and working. In my next post we will continue with the construction and wiring of this contraption.

[ContraptionMaker]

"Part 3: Putting it all together"

Now that all the pre-assembly work is done it’s time to get this contraption wired and working.
We need to start off doing some pre-wiring because once that box is epoxied to the back of the cover there will not be much room to solder. I decided to do the switches and jacks since they will be the least accessible. As you will see you have to think this out because after assembly some joints will difficult if not impossible to reach.



Adapting the battery charger to the computer jack would be easy since the car plug supplied 12v to the charger. The cell phone on the other hand had a circuit built into the plug. This is the part we are after.
Here is the charger before disassembly.

As you can see in the next picture the charger itself is pretty small.

When you open it up you find that the circuit itself is even smaller.

Not much bigger than a quarter, this will fit perfectly in the corner.

This is what it look like mounted to the back of the panel.

View from the top.

Working on the pre-wiring.

Pre-wiring done gluing the box to the panel.

Box clamped to panel waiting for epoxy to set

With the epoxy set finish wiring up the control panel.

Back

Front

With the wiring done the only step left is to get the speakers to the input jack at the back of the box and back out to the speakers. I did this using two stereo jacks mounted to a card slot cover. One is for the input from the sound card and one for output to the speakers. I am sorry but I do not have any pics of this but here is a drawing of what I did.

Here is a pic of the rear panel with the card slot with speaker jacks.

Here it is in the computer finally. Sorry about the glare.

This is my case with just the case fan and power supply lighting.

And with all the lights on.

Another view of the side lit up.

A couple of pics of the back with the lights on.

And for the final photo, a pic of the cell phone charging from the front of my computer.

I hope you enjoy doing this build as much as I did and I hope that maybe in some strange way, I might have inspired you to get busy and control your own computer.

[SXRguyinMA]

awesome idea on the cell phone charger!

[ContraptionMaker]

Thanks, it worked out pretty well.

[Mach]

Wow, great idea, good pictures, and clear worklog! +Rep

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Neat idea! I like the way you pulled it off - clean and simple. If it weren't for the Westminster typeface I'd swear it came that way. +rep

Now, as for the rest of the case... let's see that modded, hmm?

[aintnothang]

+rep, sick!

[Eclecticos]

Looks great! The transparency graphics were a nice touch.
An effective, and attractive power distribution panel. +Rep

I appreciate the fact that you have listed the parts,
and tools needed to build one of these.

[ContraptionMaker]

Looks great! The transparency graphics were a nice touch.
An effective, and attractive power distribution panel. +Rep

I appreciate the fact that you have listed the parts,
and tools needed to build one of these.

Thanks a lot Eclecticos! I plan on doing something similar on the Spider House to control my lighting. Not going to be quite as elaborate though.

[SXRguyinMA]

I'm going to do up something like that on my case to control my CCFLs, rather than those tacky switches on the rear of the case, love it!